Web 2.0 Firms Taking Slower Route to IPOs

Growing Web 2.0 companies like LinkedIn, Facebook, and Slide are biding their time before going public, making sure to run up their value as much as possible to fetch top dollar with an IPO, reports Business Week. It’s a far different approach than companies took before the dot-com bubble burst, when the fast track to an IPO was the goal.

"All three of these companies would have been public in the late '90s," says the former CEO of PayPal and an investor in the trio. Investors are clamoring for a piece of these social networking sites, and Silicon Valley VCs would like to see some Web 2.0 slam dunks. But a slowing economy may be taking a bite out of web advertising, and has prompted some companies to delay offerings. Says Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg: "We'll do it when it makes sense for us."  (More Facebook stories.)